Solutions for Dog Urine on Sub Flooring

Potty/House Training

• Potty training, or house training, a dog is the single most important solution to dog urine on sub flooring or any flooring in your home. If you are going to have a dog that is inside for extended periods of time, you need to make sure that dog goes to the bathroom at a designated location, whether it be outdoors or on a pad or litter box indoors. House training is important because if you avoid dog urine on your flooring--whether it consists of carpet, hardwood, linoleum or tile--then you will avoid dog urine on your sub flooring.

Replace Flooring

• Dog urine gets to your sub flooring via the flooring that sits atop it. Carpet, which is usually not very thick, allows dog urine to soak through very easily and causes staining of your sub flooring. Other flooring types, such as linoleum and tile, are thicker and have creases that are protected by grout but still not completely impenetrable. Finally, hardwood flooring, though not as easy to soak through as carpet, has creases that can cause dog urine to penetrate through to the sub flooring. If your flooring has been soaked with dog urine, you need to remove and replace that flooring.

Repair Sub Flooring

• Once dog urine has penetrated the flooring and started to damage your sub flooring, you need to repair the sub flooring. The cost and extent of sub flooring repair will depend on the extent of the damage caused by the urine. If dog urine has only slightly penetrated and stained the sub flooring, then simply replacing the flooring and cleaning the sub flooring will be enough. However, if the dog urine has penetrated completely through and has done a lot of damage to the sub flooring, you will have to replace the damaged area.